Posts I've Made

If it is hyperpigmentation you are hoping to tackle (the dark patches of skin) then some peels may help. I would recommend having them done professionally though, if you can find a clinic that specialises in acne-related beauty treatments, as it's quite difficult to apply peels (particularly high strength ones) to your back yourself.

Alternatively, you could look into non-ablative lasers such as IPL and V-beam, which have been used with some success on hyperpigmentation.

As far as treating the actual scars themselves, there isn't a great deal you can do for body scarring, unfortunately. You might like to check out my topic for dealing with body scarring, which is pinned in the 'Body acne' forum.

The white dots are called 'macules', and are areas of scar tissue. Acne on the body is more likely to cause this type of macular scarring than facial acne, and unfortunately, this type of scarring is also much more difficult to treat.

I have severe macular scarring on my chest and back, but am gradually coming to terms with it as it has become much less noticeable over the past 2 years due to the redness fading in the scars. There are no treatments, as far as I know (and I have consulted with experts such as Dr Chu and Julie Arnold) that can rectify this type of scarring, but there are some options that may make it less unsightly.

-Isolagen - several rounds of treatment can, according to Dr Chu, level out the scarring significantly, although it won't affect the texture of the scar tissue.

- Needling - could potentially help raise depressed macules, although I haven't tried this myself, and Julie Arnold, who is a leader in skin needling treatments, has not used it on body scarring.

- Laser. Non-ablative lasers such as V-Beam and IPL can tackle residual redness in the scarring.

- Pigmentation camouflage treatments. To my way of thinking, this is probably the best treatment out there for macular scarring at the moment. When I have enough money, I think this is the treatment I'm going to go for. It attempts to normalise the appearance of scarring by injecting pigment into the area to camouflage it against the rest of the surrounding skin. Julie Arnold also claims that pigmentation treatments can actually trigger natural re-pigmentation in the scar tissue itself. Although this doesn't treat the scarring in any way, I think it could make it look a lot less conspicuous.

These are just a few suggestions anyway, please consult a dermatologist or aesthetician specialising in scar treatment for more advice.

Non ablative lasers such as N-lite and Smoothbeam are best for active acne. These tend to be performed on the whole face.

Ablative lasers such as CO2 and YAG are supposedly best for scarring, although some people have found they worsened their scars. You can have these done on the whole face or scarred areas, but prices for full-face will be higher.